Is Edgar Allan Poe considerd a transcendentalists? If so where can i find information on him being one.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003

Answers

Poe did not have a respectful relationship with the members of that movement and certainly would be scornful of your suggestion. Poe's own cosmology seems to have some contemporary echos of transcendentalist philosophy in his book "Eureka" (online at www.eapoe.org)but his source material is scientific not Eastern religions. What seems at first like the New England ideas is instead pure Poe. In fact Eureka is the only example of possible similarity bewteen the two. It might be a bgeneral deist symptom of that age that intellectuals found their comfort in new cosmologies. Poe is looking ahead to new science and progress. The Bostonians were looking back to old religions and comforting cycles of repetition.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2003